Edward Barber, V.C., is killed - and Tring News on 17/4/1915

Extracts from the Bucks Herald of 17th April, 1915

Edited from British Newspaper Archive
Previous week ~~~~ Tring News Index ~~~~ Next Week

News has reached Tring of the deaths of Edward Barber, V.C., and Frank Marcham. Lieut.-General Sir Edward Hutton's letter about is leaving the 21st Division is published, and fifteen soldiers are confirmed by the Bishop of St Albans. Arthur Macdonald writes to the paper on the army's need for more sand-bags and William Mead, of Tring Flour Mill, agrees to be a collecting point.  At Tring Park Cricket Club's AGM it was said they would be having a reduced fixture list and would not be employing any permanent ground staff - and would reduce the subscription accordingly. It was agreed that the rents paid by the Tring Tennis and Bowling clubs would be reduced if they also reduced their subscriptions. The Easter festival normally held by the Church Girls' Union had been cancelled due to the War.  At the Easter Vestry Meeting the Vicar, Rev. H. Francis mentioned with pride the towns role it the war, with 298 being on active service, of which 79 had been members of the Church Lads' Brigade, with 5 having been Boy Scouts. At the National level local farmers may well have been unhappy about the Government's arrangements for buying hay. The death of Lord Rothschild, reported two weeks earlier, featured in a number of reports. He had been the president of the Tring Agricultural Society and there were many tributes at the meeting of their committee. He had actively helped the Tring Park Cricket Club, although his son Walter was the club president. Hew was also briefly mentioned in the vicar's report given at the Vestry Meeting. However much of the long report at this meeting provides an interesting review of the town during the previous year. Other news included the wedding at Wigginton of Miss Petronella Trickey of Champneys (the home of Mr Alexander Marc) and Mr, Thomas J. N. Perkins, headmaster of Helensburgh School, the high prices at William Brown's fat stock sale, and William Rodwell having been prosecuted for riding a motor bkie and side car with inadequate lights. Perhaps because of the other news there was less church news than usual. Surnames mentioned this week:  Bagnall Bailey Baker Baldwin Barber Barton Bathurst Bedford Beech Bishop Brackley Bright Brown Bull Burnham Butcher Carr Carter Clarke Clissold Coker Cole Cox Crossland Dawe De Fraine Dickens Elliman Fells Finch Flowers Forestier-Walker Fountaine Francis Fulks Fulley, Gibbs Grange Gregory Hayes Heading Hedges Hardern Horwood Houchen Howe Huckvale Hull Hutton Jenney Kidstone Kingham Kirk Lepper Macdonald Marc Marcham Mash Mathews Mead Miller Newman Newton Pearce Perkins Pond Poulton Pratt Reeve Rodwell Rothschild Rowe Smeathman Smith Steadman Trickey Turner Tyler Vaisey Waterton Williams

Tring News on 20th March, 1915

Military

While there were a large number of troops billeted in and around Tring the main military news in the local section of the paper was that there had been two concerts for their entertainment. One was put on by Mrs Williams at Pendley Manor and the other was arranged by the Soldiers' Entertainment Fund and held in the  Medical Inspection Hall (now the Victoria Hall). However in the main part of the paper, covering Aylesbury, there are indications that billeting is to end in April, and the soldiers will be moving on.

Old News

One of the soldiers, based in nearby Aston Clinton was before the court for driving a car with no lights and one can only wonder if the police were tightening up after the accident in which two soldiers had been killed a week or so earlier. One may also wonder if some of the road repairs deemed necessary were due to the wear and tear due to the number of troop movements in the area, and the construction of the camp at Halton.

Tring

In normal years local gardeners would be able to compete for prizes in events such as the Tring Agricultural Show, but many had been cancelled, However the Daily Mail had announced a grand show of vegetables in London in September, and Arthur Dye, of Tring Park Gardens, was co-ordinating entries for the area.

On the religious front the Baptist Church at New Mill had meetings supporting the Baptist Missionary Society while the Baptist Chapel at  Wigginton celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Sunday school.  There was also the usual order of services for the Parish Church.

Easter was being celebrated in a different was by W. Brown & Co, auctioneers - who were inviting entries to the Tring Easter Fat Stock Show and Sale - and they were also to sell off a baker's tools and trade utensils - including a dough mixer, a cake making machine, and a waggonette and a useful tradesman's horse.

Surnames: Ariston, Bagnall, Baker, Birch, Brooks, Brown, Clark, Curtis, Dell, Downes, Dye, Eggleton, Fulks, Gomme, Groome, Hazell, Heading, Hemmens, Hutton, Kirby, Kirk, Lang, Locke, Longman, Mather, Mullins, Page, Rothschild, Rowe, Sait-Knight, Swann, Taylor, Thorne, Ward, West, White, Wilding, Williams, Winterton

Extracts from the Bucks Herald of 20th March, 1915

Edited from British Newspaper Archive

Tring News 23rd January 1915 - Wartime activities and killing sparrows.

Military

Extracts from the Bucks Herald of 23rd January, 1915

Edited from British Newspaper Archive
Previous week ~~~~ Tring News Index 

Tring The training of the men in the 21st Division continued, and they remained in local billets while the construction of the Halton Camp (described in detail) continued. The Y.M.C.A. facilities for the troops billeted in Tring continued with an evening of entertainment in the Museum annex. The Bucks Herald also reported details of the concert organised by the Aldbury Choral Society. One of the singers was Captain Vivian D. Williams of the 5th Dragoons, who was back in England recovering from wounds he had sustained in France. Two soldiers from the 13th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers (who were billeted in the village) also preformed. At the Parish Church the Rev. Rainbow gave a talk describing the Church Army's contribution to the war effort. There was a recruiting advertisement showing the Royal Field Artillery in action, and it may well be that the number of men joining up explains why Herbert Grange and James Honour of Grove, Tring, were both trying to recruit grooms. The St John Ambulance Association was planning to set up a local Ambulance Division and the paper lists 13 local men who recently qualified for a first aid certificate, carefully failing to name the one in the class who failed. The Tring and district Sparrow Club held their annual meeting at the Rose and Crown and it was reported that during the year bounty had been paid for 9,302 sparrows heads. There was a big wedding at All Saint's Church, Long Marston when  Miss Edith Ives, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Roberts, married Mr. A. Proctor, the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. John Proctor - and there is a long list of those who gave presents. Mrs J Batchelor died and was buried only a week after the death of her husband. Another death was that of Alice Osborn of 70 Akeman-street, Tring. A new organist was appointed at Tring Parish Church, and there was a fund-raising talk on the  Baptist Missionary Society at the High Street Baptist Church.

Tring at War: Latest News 2nd January, 1915

Extracts from the Bucks Herald

Tring

The section headed "TRING in 1914" starts with the words "The most memorable year which this generation has known or is likely know. has just come to an end. Tring at the beginning of 1914, was an obscure little country town, pursuing its quiet, uneventful way. To-day it is a centre of military activity." and much of the current week's news is typical what one might expect of an obscure little country town. The Churches did what churches do at Christmas, the local Slate Clubs paid up, three girls passed their music exams. Lord Rothschild distributed hampers to the children in nearby Marsworth (just over the county boundary into Bucks). Hunting was still continuing as normal, S.C.Holdaway was selling a full range of Horrockses striped and plain flannelettes and you could buy Harrison's Hair Colour Restorer from A. G. Wright. And of course there was a funeral to report, Mrs Percy Mead having died at her home in Gubblecote.

Military

While the soldiers were still in town, and are mentioned in the review of 1914, the only current events described are the Christmas gifts of cigarettes to the soldiers in the two military hospitals, and the concert in the Tennis Court at Pendley Manor. Some of the soldiers seemed to have missed out on parcels from the mining towns in Northumberland - but to learn of this Tring problem you needed to read the Newcastle Journal.

While the military camp at Halton was in Bucks, the 21st Division H.Q. was in Tring, but for the latest news relating to the poor state of the roads to the camp one has to look under the High Wycombe News.

Because the newspaper straddles the county boundary it is weak of more general news relating to Hertfordshire and the Bucks Herald did not mention the following report which appeared in a number of papers, such as the Liverpool Daily News:

HERTFORDSHIRE CASUALTIES Official communication was received yesterday at the headquarters of the First Hertfordshire Regiment (Territorials), at Hertford announcing that Lance-SergeantT. E. Gregory, of Watford, and Private Percy Suggins, ofWare, were killed in action on Christmas Day. The fighting took place at a point where only twenty yards separated the British and German trenches. This is the second time the Herts Territorials have been under fire.

Extracted from the Bucks Herald, 2nd January, 1915

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Tring at War - Latest News 19th December, 1914

Christmas in Tring is looking good, as the the decision to based the headquarters of the 21st Division in the town, and the billeting of some 3,000 men now means that the shops are busy, although they would be even busier if local people shopped locally rather than in London. The paper was full of Xmas adverts and Tring Consolidated Charities distributed tickets for bread and coal. Over £25 was raised at the Tring Stock Sale for the Belgium Relief Fund and the big local news was the death of Dr Brown. There are brief mentions of the success of  Evelyn A. Freeman and Norah Jeffery in music exams, the vocalists at the Gem cinema, a lecture by the Rev. E. J. Whitman at the Baptist Chapel at Wigginton,  and the fact that Mr. H. W. Bishop, of Pendley, was a judge at the Smithfield Show.

     The military plans to use the High Street Schools as a military hospital were  progressing, which will allow them to vacate the Victoria Hall. Several Councillors launch an appeal for Xmas gifts for the soldiers in the hospital. Meanwhile military training carries on in the area. The nearby village of Marsworth provides a list of men from the parish serving in the armed forces. The very rainy weather was causing problems in the construction of the large army camp just over the county boundary at Halton, where "The continual heavy rains have, if anything, added to the wretched conditions that prevail, and the roads in the vicinity of the camp are almost impassable to anything but heavy motor vehicles." These problems may be why James Putnam was offering 30/- a week, plus lodgings, for "Pair and Single Horse Drivers" to work at the camp. Elsewhere in the paper there is a mention of the problems farmers are having with preparing the fields for the crops because so many farm workers have volunteered for the forces. [Later in the war a single track narrow gauge line was built between Wendover Station and the camp]

     Bombardier P. Seabrook, 35th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, son of Mr. Edwin Seabrook, of Albert-street, wrote home and while such letters do not normally mention the location or the fighting he can report that "Yon can read of my Battery in the Daily Mail of Nov. 26th. The heading 'Sticking to the Guns.' and 'The Heroic Defence of --- by a Single Battery commanded Major Christie.'" [Has anyone got a copy???]

Extracted from the Bucks Herald, 19th December, 1914

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100 years ago this week - A German Spy in Tring?? and other News stories

A lot of news this week - with War related news turning up all over the place. 

Military

There was a scare about a suspect German Spy. On the war front there were additional names for the Roll of Honour for Tring and Wigginton, and some casualties such as Private Edwin Dell who was wounded and in hospital while Harold Gurney was suffering from frost-bite in the feet. The men of the 21st Division (the 62nd & 63rd Brigades billeted in Tring) were taking it in turn to take leave while Lieut. G. Macdonald Brown was unstinting in his praise of the behaviour of the Herts Regiment men at the front. Recruitment to the Volunteer Training Corps was reported as being slow. 

William Brown was advertising furnished houses near Tring and Halton - which could have been in demand where married officers wanted their families nearby during training. The Urban District Council met and in addition to routine items about a polluted pond in Grove Park, the Brook Street Sewer and a new School Manager, there were military references when discussing the Isolation Hospital and the refuse collection.

Old News

Of course everyone was preparing for Christmas, with many adverts, and I reproduce a typical one by Jacklin, a news agent, and another tuned to the war theme with the headline "War on Pain." People (including the Belgium refugees and the soldiers billeted in the town) had enjoyed Miss Darnell singing at the Gem Cinema as well as watching the films. The hare coursing season had just begun and after a good day (not so good for 14 hares) the party relaxed in the dining room of the Royal Hotel, at Tring Station - and a collection raised £1 4s for the War Fund.

On more routine matters the paper reported on the death of the Oddfellow, Thomas Dudley (55) who worked in the Tring Park building department. There were Diocesan reports of the village schools atLong Marston and Wilstone, and records of the milk production of the Shorthorn and Jersey herds at Tring Park.

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Other Tring "Old News .